Thursday, December 11, 2014

Gaze by Miguel Paulo Borja

"The gaze sees itself, the gaze surprises me; reduces me to shame. This gaze is not a seen gaze but agaze imagined by me in the field of the Other." ~ Jacques Lacan

When an artist creates art, he brings to life an inanimate object by giving it purpose and projecting himself into his art; and when a viewer gazes into a work of art, who is to say that the artwork does not gazeback, suddenly aware of its purpose, fleeting as it may be.

The term gaze is defined as looking steadily and intently at someone or something. This steady look, however, may be a look of admiration, surprise, scrutiny or even a simple thought. A gaze received by the viewer can be interpreted in different ways. The viewer struggles to understand the intent of the persongazing at him and ultimately projecting his own thoughts and ideas onto that person. The gaze acts as mirror that reflects what we want to see and how we want to be seen.

As we search for our purpose and meaning in life, we reflect on ourselves by looking at our life in the eyes of another. Objectively and subjectively unwrapping the layers of our past and present, hoping to find something that will define our existence and open our eyes to realities as well as possibilities.

In "Gaze", Miguel Paulo Borja imagines a literal depiction of this symbiosis between art and viewer, and ultimately between art and artist as he paints portraits that seem to gaze into the abyss and back at him, sharing questions of their existence and hoping that somewhere out there is a viewer in the abyss thatgazes back.